The spirit of Christmas is still alive

The glitter and cookie crumbs have finally settled from Christmas and I have spent the last couple of days relaxing without having to worry about writing papers or wrapping presents. We had a fabulous holiday and the celebrating isn't over, yet! Jeff is seriously distraught if I turn the Christmas lights off before 11pm and I just know we will end up throwing our tree into the woods across the street again missing the trash pick-up for our tree again because we are still "enjoying the season". Luckily, I love it just as much as he does.

Our Christmas celebration was extended throughout the entire month of December starting with festive attire & great friends.

Seriously, the only thing more hilarious than buying a festive sweater vest & turtleneck from Walmart is buying one from Savers!

We celebrated weekend after weekend, day after day, and it was perfect. (I would show you pictures if my camera wasn't from 2004..no joke. I don't bring it around much anymore. Maybe Santa will bring one next year...)

We hosted our first Christmas dinner at our house this year and I was surprised at how well it went. I successfully replicated the most delicious meal I've ever had (which included de-boning a pork shoulder) and both sides of our family got to spend time together We usually bounce from house to house on Christmas and it was nice to be able to have everyone over and not have to leave.  I would love to make Christmas the holiday we host except next year, I want to stay in my pajamas all day.

One of my favorite things that we did was attend the 11:00 service on Christmas Eve at church. I have never been to a late holiday service and apparently I have been missing out. The service was filled with music and scripture that revolved around the Christmas story. Our pastor made it relevant and even told us it was okay to close our eyes. (we didn't!) The service ended with the entire congregation standing around the Christmas tree in the rotunda singing "Silent Night". This service had a great impact on us and it really helped the both of us to see the true meaning of Christmas.

Growing up, we would get to open one gift on Christmas Eve and it was always our Christmas pajamas. Now that I no longer live with my parents, they still gives us our Christmas pajamas and Jeff gets them too. This year.. we matched! The look on Jeff's face was priceless when he glanced over and saw the same pair of pajamas in my hands!

I also loved opening gifts on Christmas morning. We decided to just do stockings this year. Jeff put 110% effort into this task and even googled "stocking stuffers". Too bad I wasn't better at updating the blog, I could have provided him with a list. He didn't need it, though. He did good! I was so happy to get the movies The Help, Crazy Stupid Love, and Just Dance 3 for the Wii, among other things. We did break our no gift rule when we found a new entertainment system, which we needed, and decided that this would be our gift. St. Nick Jeff still wanted to wrap it and put it under the tree. How sweet is this??

Princess had the most gifts and she couldn't wait to play with each one.

I hope that you were just as blessed as we were this Christmas!